


Cendrion (Cendrillon)

by lover_of_blue_roses



Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale), Cinderella - All Media Types, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9189182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_blue_roses/pseuds/lover_of_blue_roses
Summary: A telling of the classic by Perrault, without foreign influence, in modern english.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> Cendrion is pronounced the same as Cendrillon but the spelling works out better.  
> Patten are the predecessors to heels, worn in the time period by both genders. They are simple step-ins without straps like slippers.  
> Vair is a type of fur that was second-most common fur in heraldry (common for nobles). In French it pronounced the same as glass.

Once upon a time, a widower count of a wealthy fief who remarried to a proud and beautiful lady. She had two daughters, who were equally as pretty as their mother. The count also had a beautiful young daughter, Marion.

However his new lady wife was an expensive and demanding so the count traveled far for long periods to trade. His trade was very profitable but the lady mismanaged and neglected his fief, the land became less and less profitable. 

The count spent more and more time away until he was never home. To the count's daughter it become evident that her new step-mother and step-sisters were as beautiful as they were selfish, vain, haughty and cruel. As the money and fief were mismanaged everything changed. Little by little the household staff was let go because they couldn't be afforded and Marion was asked to work instead. At first Marion, of unparalleled kindness and sweet temper, was happy to help here and there, where there was need for one more hand. But as weeks turned to months, there was more and more work as there was less and less servants. Soon Marion realized that her step-sisters never did any chores and that she was now missing out on her classes.

To her horror, her, Marion Countess de Montfaucon, was treated less like a sister, an equal, and more like a servant. Beyond losing her education, free time and wealth, they now seemed to be taking away her title, the right she had been born to. Her father was much too far away to save her. So in her father's absence Marion was forced into servitude, where she was made to work day and night doing menial chores.

Her step-mother said there was pretense to maintain and kept spending as though the keep wasn't in financial ruin, inviting over guests for extravagant parties and feasts. Her step-mother said that giving her even firewood was to expensive and she would just have to go without. Without fire at night, even when not winter, it was far to cold to sleep in her room and so she spent the night before the roasting fire in the kitchen which had to burn all day and all night irregardless. Her step-sisters of course still had large fires in their rooms. 

So every night she slept in the kitchen. She had no time to warm water and wash herself and so soot and grim came to cover her skin. Bad enough that she had to be without her father, without her title to slave away everyday but her sisters began to call her the 'Cinder Marion' Cendre Marion; a play of words on Countess Marion. On day a pageboy from a neighboring county thought her name to be Cendrion. She was a born Countess, her blood was pure and worthy. All the chores that wore at her were nothing to this disgrace. Such sadness swept over her that day. She tried to hide it but to no avail, knowing how it tormented her they called her that at every opportunity. By the time she was a maiden flowered and grown, she had no hope left in her heart. 

One day, a royal invitation was sent to all nobility in the land of a royal ball for the Prince to choose a wife. It was to last for two days and be a masqueraded ball so that the Prince was choose the best and not the prettiest. Beauty diminishes but a good souls last. The two step-sisters gleefully planned their wardrobes and dialogue for the ball, taunting Cendrion by telling her that maids were not invited. 

She knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was not a maid but a Countess and that was was technically invited. So as she watched them depart to the ball, where they would have great fun and possibly find fine suitors, she cried in despair under the arch of the gate. 

As the coach disappeared into the distance a lone figure approached the entrance to the keep where she wept. Cendrion, a true lady at heart, wiped her tears and put on a brave face before this person. The beggar asked only for food and beverage, like black bread and cider. But Cendrion felt generous because whilst it was not in her power to help herself it was to help this poor woman and so she offered her milk and white bread. It was more that even Cendrion ate herself but today there was no step-family to see and to know. 

The beggar woman saw the way the worn dress hung on Cendrion's frame, the bones that jutted from skin and offered half to her. The beggar woman thanked her for her kindness and asked if she might repay her in anyway. Cendrion wanted only some help to bathe. She was always tired and short of time but with this woman's help they boiled buckets of water and she could just soak in peace and calm. The woman clean her with her step-sisters soaps and scents rather than the scratch bar Cendrion normally used. 

She went into the water Cendrion the servant but she seemed to come out Marion again. Upon hearing this the beggar woman then laughed a revealed with magic to be her Fairy Godmother. She then took a dirty dress that Marion had worn for years and changed it to a fine jeweled gown. Her apron into a mask with feathers. Her hair was transformed so thoroughly with a flick of her wand there was no need for a wig. 

They went to go outside but before stepping onto the dirt path Marion stopped. Servants and slaves didn't wear shoes but she was neither now. With a flick of magic a pair of vair pattens appeared for her to step into. Never had Marion wore shoes with heels, having been to young when she was gifted such luxuries. Nor had she ever seen some made of fur, they had always been leather, but they looked beautiful with their grey-blue and grey-white pattern. Marion was just concerned she would lose them as they had no fastens to hold her foot like the practical slippers she wore in her youth.

In the courtyard the Fairy Godmother turned a pumpkin into a golden carriage, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman and lizards into footmen; such a decadence footmen now seemed. Plucking leaves from the wind, she also made earrings and a necklace. The Godmother told her to enjoy the ball, but warned that magic only last a day and then the spells would be broken. The end of the day being at midnight, not the next sunrise. 

Marion arrived more than late to the ball, everyone had already arrived. The entire court was entranced by her, Marion, behind her mask was unsure if it was because of the vibrancy of her dress or the magic of the aura surrounding her. The Prince too was entranced. The Prince had already promised dances to many ladies and only had a few dances to spare her. At half twelve she remembered to leave. Back at home, Marion graciously thanked her Godmother. Afterwards she greeted the step-sisters who talked of nothing but the beautiful girl in the jeweled gown.

The next evening Marion again attended with her Godmother's help. The Prince had become even more infatuated as the other ladies seemed became more desperate. While Marion wore the proper full face volto larva mask and had no skin showing but her neck, most of the women had come today in only colombina domino mask or no mask at all showing off their fair faces in dress with inappropriately high hems. Because she arrived early this time, she had all the Prince's time and attention. It was so enchanting that she lost all track of time and only realized the late hour when the bells began to chime. 

As fast as her tightly laced corset would allow her, she ran out of the ballroom leaving a shoe behind. The Prince tried to chase after her but the palace guards saw only a simple servant girl leave. The patten was clearly magic when the Prince held it and he vowed to marry the lady that fit the shoe.

Unlike the other transformed items, the shoes were created from nothing and so it didn't vanish at the changing of the day. Marion kept the shoe and knew something must be done. When the step-sisters came back with the news that the Prince was looking to try it on every women in the kingdom, she realized nothing need to be done as the events had already been set into motion.

So the Prince did as he said and tried the shoe on all the women in the kingdom. When the Prince arrives at Marion's keep, the stepsisters tried in vain to win over the prince. Marion asked if she might try, while the stepsisters taunted her. She had grown too thick-skinned for their cruelty to stop her now. By magic the shoe jump onto her foot where naturally it fit perfectly, and Cinderella produced the other shoe for good measure. Cinderella's stepfamily pleaded for forgiveness to the queen-to-be, and Cinderella agreed.  
Cinderella married the Prince as her stepsisters, less cruel than their mother, are married to two handsome gentlemen of the royal court. The land was taken by the crown and given to someone else as reward where it would again prosper. And so they lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of want to write a long version but I don't know if anyone would care for OCs in a known story like this


End file.
